Celebrating FMR's 2025 volunteers and young river stewards

K-12 and youth programs

Youth program and school-group participants contributed 694 volunteer hours in 2025 through storm drain stenciling, invasive species removal and more. Also this year, 1,571 youth, parents and educators participated in educational programming with FMR, for nearly 3,500 total education hours.

We’ve been working with Dowling Elementary for a while now, and in 2025–2026, we stepped things up by adding three quarterly sessions, reaching 75 students. This year, we also partnered with the High School of Recording Arts to take learning beyond the classroom. Many visited Fort Snelling State Park for the first time with us. Students also helped the DNR collect seeds during a service-learning trip to William O’Brien State Park. On top of that, we kicked off a new partnership with Obama Middle School, serving 115 students. Students from Open World Learning in St. Paul also joined us for storm drain stenciling, water quality activities and habitat restoration projects.

Environmental Stewardship Institute: summer intensive program

In 2025, FMR's Environmental Stewardship Institute (ESI) summer intensive program — part of our career pathways programming for high school-aged youth — showed participants the wide variety of jobs in the environmental field through guest speakers and hands-on experiences. Participants heard from FMR staff and environmental experts about their career journeys, and contributed to field research, collecting data for a silviculture study and counting monarch eggs on milkweed.

During the eight-week program co-led by our youth assistant, 22 fellows carried out unique and creative projects on various topics, including pollution, Mississippi River industrialization and endangered species. The program culminated with ESI fellows presenting their projects to family, friends and their ESI colleagues. See their projects and more.

Environmental Stewardship Institute: Youth Council

In 2025, the Environmental Stewardship Institute (ESI) Youth Council expanded to 10 members, two more than the prior year. The council continues collaborating with FMR staff on advocacy efforts, like the Water Over Nickel campaign, and the City of St. Paul–funded storm drain mural project. Through this collaboration, members gained hands-on experience working alongside West Side artist Jesus Ramirez. The council members also continue to partner with the DNR at Fort Snelling State Park for monthly outings. This school year, the council is working on creating a children’s book that educates on the importance of keeping the river clean.

Restoration volunteers

Habitat restoration volunteers pulled invasive garlic mustard and Siberian squill in floodplain forests, lopped sumac to restore blufftop prairies, hauled buckthorn brush, collected native prairie seed and more. Volunteers also planted 218 native trees and shrubs and 1,847 native plants in 2025.

A highlight of this year's volunteer events was a series of interpretive hikes led by Kassidy Swanson, who served with FMR in 2025 as a Climate Impact Corps member. Hike participants commented that Kassidy's hikes deepened their understanding of how their volunteering strengthens ecosystems and enhanced their appreciation for what makes FMR restoration sites special.

Thanks to funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, FMR also hosted three "Paddle, restore and learn" events this year, combining opportunities to paddle a stretch of the Mississippi River, learn from river experts and then participate in a hands-on restoration activity, all in one adventurous day. Learn more about the routes that participants paddled.

"Paddle, restore and learn" participant Nancy Mason Hauser wrote of her experience: "I have nothing but the highest praise for the caring and professional treatment we all received… I think it was a model of reaching out to the community, in introducing things that never crossed MY mind in an intriguing way."

Monitoring volunteers

Volunteers with our wildlife and pollinator monitoring programs gathered data that helps FMR ecologists track the impact of restoration and more effectively enhance wildlife habitat.

This year, FMR expanded our monarch monitoring program from two sites in 2024 to four sites in 2025. Using our partner Monarch Joint Venture’s Integrated Monarch Monitoring Program protocol, 36 dedicated Pollinator Evaluation Program (PEP) volunteers monitored milkweed, monarch eggs, monarch larvae and butterflies throughout the summer, making a valuable contribution to community science. Learn more about findings from the 2025 Pollinator Evaluation Program.

At the award-winning Pine Bend Bluffs Natural Area, Flint Hills Resources employees also volunteered to help capture images of coyotes, sandhill cranes, deer, herons and more, enhancing FMR ecologists’ understanding of how restoration at that site is impacting mammals and birds. Learn more about what our wildlife cameras showed us this summer.

Stream Health Evaluation Program volunteers

Our Stream Health Evaluation Program (SHEP) is FMR's longest-running scientific data collection project. Supported by the Rice Creek Watershed District, SHEP returned for its 20th season, bringing together 34 participants (two of whom were new to the community) to collect samples from streams and identify macroinvertebrates in the lab. This year, SHEP volunteers contributed over 550 volunteer hours, mostly between July and October. Their work helps to assess the long-term health of three streams that ultimately drain into the Mississippi. Look for the upcoming annual SHEP report in the new year to see what these volunteers discovered in their streams.

Ah-li M. has been a volunteer with SHEP for two years now and shared their reflection of the program: “I enjoy having a role to play in tracking the water quality of water that empties into the Mississippi. It's interesting to hear what human activities can improve or detract from stream health. Mostly I like being able to help improve the environment."

Storm drain stenciling volunteers

In our storm drain stenciling program, 498 volunteers stenciled 2,302 storm drains in the Twin Cities metro and shared 4,901 informational flyers with community members. Volunteers learned about common pollutants that enter the city's storm drains and flow to our lakes, ponds and rivers, then took action to clean up neighborhoods and inform others. 

A volunteer from a college group shared their stenciling experience: "Going out there with my peers was fun, it definitely gave us time to walk, talks, and get some fresh air and sunshine while cleaning and painting around the drain!"

Cleanup volunteers

A total of 520 cleanup volunteers cleaned up litter in parks and neighborhoods across the metro area in 2025. Our annual Earth Day cleanup, hosted with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, drew 373 volunteers this year. We’re proud that all cleanup participants who filled out our volunteer feedback form rated their experiences as Excellent.

Volunteers often brought a sense of playfulness to river cleanups. Staffers from United States Rep. Angie Craig’s office competed to find what they dubbed “Big Ticket Items” — in other words, large, weird trash — at a cleanup at Inver Grove Heights’ River Front Park. The winner was a tire that two volunteers pried out of a muddy riverbank.

FMR also partnered for the first time this year with the 5 Gyres Institute’s Plastic-Free Parks Initiative. This annual effort tracks waste trends in U.S. national parks — including the 72-mile stretch of the river that runs through the Twin Cities and is designated by the National Park Service as the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. FMR volunteer efforts this year will help 5 Gyres and other organizations work toward solutions that protect parks and waterways from plastic pollution.

Public education events

FMR’s Stewardship & Education staff frequently host public events and workshops, sharing water stewardship tips throughout the metro area. 

In August and September, we co-hosted two workshops in St. Paul focused on mini-forests, an innovative approach to adding small, dense forests to urban areas. Presenters Nate Galloway and Hannah Lewis shared how participants can start planning their own mini-forests to cool down urban heat islands, enhance wildlife habitat, improve water quality and build community.

Supported by the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization, FMR also offered two workshops with nature educator Angie Hong focusing on gardening with native, pollinator-friendly plants. At each workshop, our partners MWMO and Blue Thumb shared resources and tips on how to plan a gardening project for pollinators and clean water. Angie also shared information about grants for native plantings, including Blue Thumb’s Lawns to Legumes program.